1. Pure Loathing

It only took me three betrayals to finally understand that this world if filled with pure loathing.

This world has nothing but contempt for those who are weak, and no one will ever believe in you. The only thing we can do is hate ourselves, and that hatred will eventually lead us to despair.

If only I could notice it earlier, maybe I could have changed.

I could no longer trust anyone after the things I have faced, but I didn't know that things would turn out this way even after the measures I had taken.

Here I was being hunted down by a dragon. Now that I think about it, it's quite amusing that I'm in the current situation. Even though, I knew that nothing would change, I decided to trust someone once again.

But never have I thought that would be my last day living. This world is full of surprises but the more that I think about my life, I realize that it's filled with agony.

It's as if this world didn't want me to exist any longer and as if someone was enjoying my misery.

The profoundest eternal questions are always met only with an eternal silence in this world.

To be honest, it is even surprising that I haven't been dead earlier than now.

To understand how I got into the current situation, I decided to evaluate which is what's going to be my last and final mistake.

Few hours ago, a party of people came up to me and said they wanted my help to carry their luggage. This world has drastically changed since the First World Eruption, which happened around 3 years ago. Monsters from various other dimensions that are only supposed to exist in fairy tale that we always thought were not real came into existence and started plundering world into ashes.

Even though concept of <MANA> has been well established before the First World Eruption, there weren't many ways to use it that efficiently.

Well, with the world's balance being put into a disarray, people with efficient control of <MANA> were able to put their abilities to use and help the people from this suffering.

Due to this disaster, many people lost lives but many others had gained opportunities to register themselves as people help the people in need. These people who are so called seen in the eyes of society are called <Players>.

Organizations did rise up to take benefit of this disaster and we could say that the world did gain a lot of things but also suffered quite a lot. But needless to say, it didn't matter because my life didn't change.

As someone who didn't have any proficiency in controlling <MANA>, I was least impacted by the current changes in this world. I somehow survived from the onslaught of monster from the First World Eruption, but it might have been better if I would died then since no one would even care with the world being gone into chaos.

Now that I look into it, the world only took a worse turn for people who were used to their normal everyday life, since inflation became much more common and people who didn't have subpar <MANA> proficiency were casted out as useless livestock. The skills they had till before the disaster didn't help them much to get through in the current world.

So the world which was thus difficult to live within became more difficult for me to live in. I had registered as a "Skycap" almost immediately after the The World Eruption had occurred. "Skycap" is just a job of carrying equipment for a party of <Players>.

You didn't need to have good enough skills to be a "Skycap", just subpar mediocre physical ability to carry stuff around and assist the <Players>. With the increased inflation in the world, the jobs oriented around the <Players>, had better pays than those without involving them since the world is heavily dependent on them.

I started being one quite early since it also comes with the benefits of being protected by the party and in this ever changing world full of disasters it's quite important to be safe and I need to make what's worth and get enough cash to make a living.

Though I was always careful, this time I was careless. I didn't get much information about the group of members that hired me and I accepted their offer which put me in the situation I'm in at the moment.

The party was a group of 5 <Players>. They had a well balance in every single aspect is what I concluded based on the information they provided so I hastily went ahead with the proposal. Alas, it dug me into my grave.

The area we were going to enter via the "Spatia" was pre-checked and was only a C-rank area. Though the "Spatia" never gives wrong info about an area, sometimes an Area Corruption can indeed take place but the "Spatia" should be able alert the <Players> beforehand to ensure the safety.

So, I went ahead with the party into the C-Rank Area called "Cobalt Blisterlands" which turned out be corrupted the moment we entered. The difficulty was way too high which could be noticed when the shield casted was easily penetrated by the Area's debuffs.

Once an Area corrupted occurs, you cannot forcefully leave the area so we were stuck in this hell till help arrives which it might not even arrive since the "Spatia" wasn't able to spot the corruption in this area. The only way was to clear this Area or to use a <Safety Orb>.

It looks like the party that I have entered with didn't have anything prepared for an Area Corruption. They insisted that they could clear the Area and didn't even realize that it was an Area Corruption. Even though, it was foolish of them, I couldn't leave them be as per the contract when we agreed to the proposal.

I had a Safety Orb upon myself to prepare myself for such cases but it could only be used only if you aren't in direct combat. One member of the group seemed to realize what was going on and started acting suspicious.

I just wanted to be careful and didn't inform anything to the leader since I was going to be the one in trouble if they didn't believe me. That's the difference between a party member and a random Skycap.

That member murdered the rest of 4 mercilessly in hope of the other Players hiding Safety Orb with them. I escaped from the scene of action as that unfolded but since I couldn't use the Safety Orb myself because an dragon has identified me approaching to it.

I had no choice but to wait for it to leave but for how long. It's only a matter of time till he shows up just to murder me. As I was thinking about that, I had felt something pierced into me.

"You thought you could just run away from the scene. You are just a mere servant. Learn your place. You probably have an Safety Orb since you ran away, don't you?" The person who eventually caught up said to me laughing like a maniac.

I had no point to return. He had stabbed me too deep and it seems like the equipment had some sort of poison. I couldn't even speak something and not like it would have mattered to him. I was losing consciousness quickly.

If only I wasn't weak, I could have protected myself from situations like this. If only I didn't hastily agree to this proposal and looked into them more. I would rather be killed by a monster than a human. This world only works on the principle of the strongest one survives till the end.

I had way too many regrets to begin with and with one miscalculation, it cost my whole life. If only I could have done better, but I guess this is the end for me.

A few moments later, I woke up. Looking around, I woke up in a familiar environment. I wasn't very fond of it but I remember it very well. As suspected, I have regressed back to my life way before the First World Eruption even happened.

I guess this is a way of me trying to live life without regrets, but knowing what's to come next I knew that I wasn't in for fun. These were the moments when I hadn't been betrayed even once and the events which took a toll on my life are about to begin very soon.

It might as well be true that someone is indeed looking at all this and having fun looking at me live my life in misery. But, that's not the real issue now.

It's time to finally restart and get everything right. Knowing everything can be a double-edged sword and of course I need to be careful of what's to come. Looks like my life is just getting started once again.